


Silent Jensen Is Never Good

by Dagger_Stiletto



Category: The Losers (2010), The Losers - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Jensen's a little bit broken, Minor Character Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-07
Updated: 2014-09-07
Packaged: 2018-02-16 13:04:54
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,776
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2270787
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dagger_Stiletto/pseuds/Dagger_Stiletto
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There are times that Jensen is quiet that the team revels in. But when he goes silent, they all go into their own mini-panics.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Silent Jensen Is Never Good

**Author's Note:**

> So I didn't quite expect this to get as sad as it did, but my media player got stuck on repeat on "Torn To Pieces" by Pop Evil, and this is what happened. And yes, I'm aware the title is crap. Translations are from spanishdict.com, so if there are mistakes, my dear Spanish-speaking friends, please do not kill me~ Feedback = love.

_There were times that Corporal Jake_ Jensen had gone completely silent, and it scared the shit out of them.

Most times, if the man was quiet, his unit, the Losers, were grateful and seemed to relax when they hadn’t realized they were tense. They reveled in the silence, thanked whatever deity that had granted them that boon. However, even during the times that his lips weren’t moving and vocal cords not straining, he still made noise. Shuffles and rustles, grunts and crooning noises, huffs of breaths, the clacking of his keyboard beneath his lightning-quick fingertips. Not really speaking, but always some kind of sound. General noises that told them all that he was _existing_.

The first time the Losers had experienced his dead silence was on the third mission he went on with them. He was still in the probation period where if he didn’t work well with them or just couldn’t handle the pressure of their types of missions, he would be transferred back to his original CO. He gabbed constantly on the radio transmission, not particularly loud but a constant stream of words in their ears. Roque snapped at him to shut the fuck up, and Jensen had only laughed and teased right back.

He’d quieted when they got to a crucial part of the mission, allowing them to concentrate on getting what they needed and getting the fuck out without being caught. They were on their way back when they realized that the transmission had gone completely silent. Nothing on Jensen’s end, not even breathing. He didn’t respond when Clay barked an order. Cougar swung his scope to where they’d left Jensen but couldn’t see him.

Instantly, the mission shifted from a grab-the-personnel-files-and-go to a find-the-tech. The men spread out, Cougar unable to do anything but stay in the building he was in and search through the windows for the blonde bespectacled man. They’d only had him for a few months, but they were already bonding with him. It’s hard  not to bond with a man that has had their backs so far, and even though his oddities and eccentricities made it harder for them to grasp, he was weaseling his way in their group slowly but surely.

There was the _rrrrat-tat-tat-tat_ of a machine gun, and then the pop-pop-pop of a semi-automatic gun in response. The flash of the gun discharge in the middle of the night was enough for Cougar to bite off a location for his teammates. They went to the fourth floor, a floor above the one that Jensen had been while downloading the online information—second half of the mission—before he went silent.

“ _Get the van, Cougar! Shit, the kid’s been hit. Bleeding like a son of a bitch. Pooch—!_ ”

Cougar moved faster than he can remember ever moving. The men were carrying the injured tech out when he got the van, and he hopped out to take Pooch’s place so Pooch could do his maniacal escape maneuvers only he can do when in a vehicle.

“What the hell happened, Corporal?” Clay snarled once they were inside and moving. Roque let Cougar take over tending to Jensen’s wounds while he readied their weapons in case they ended up in a gunfight while speeding down the highway.

“Got suckerpunched from behind right when I completed the download,” Jensen replied, smiling through the blood in his teeth. “Knocked my comm-piece out. Rather than shout out and give away your positions, I knocked him out, and then his buddies chased me out and up the stairs. My gun jammed, defective, practically fell apart in my hands, so I had to find a different weapon. Bastard shot me in my back, and I shot him in the crotch while I fell. Then got them bastards in the head, clean shot, one each.”

He gasped and twitched, gripping the leather of the seat beneath him as Cougar pours alcohol on the bullet hole in his leg, luckily in the meat of the thigh and not near any arteries, through-and-through. “Hate to say it,” he grit out through his teeth, “but you’re gonna have to dig the bullet out of my back.”

~*~~*~~*~

 _The second time had been far_ less dangerous but no less worrying. He’d apparently gotten bit by some kind of insect while in the rainforest of Malaysia. The resulting illness had consisted of muscle spasms, a fever of 102.4˚F, and hallucinations. However, instead of rambling like the rest of them would, Jensen suffered in silence. It was one of the reasons they hadn’t known of the problem until they realized that he was being quieter than even Cougar, who’d been leading the way while Jensen brought up the rear.

Again, Cougar was the one left to care for him, as he he’d had the most training as a medic—a result of having an older sister who was a paramedic.

The third time followed rescue from a four-day interval of being a POW. He’d been forced to watch the torture of several other prisoners, some soldiers and some not, and the trauma of watching and not being able to break free and save them, combined with survivor’s guilt, still haunted the man. Sometimes he went silent just caught in post-traumatic stress flashbacks.

The fourth time was less memorable, mostly because they had all been wrapped up in the trauma of watching a helicopter burn with the bodies of 25 children. He clutched the picture of his sister and niece in his hand and sat on the end of the bed, sightlessly staring at the floor. They all dealt with their pain differently: Roque gambled and brawled in bars, and Pooch buried himself in mechanic work and the brief glimpses of his pregnant wife in the hacked feeds Jensen provided; Clay focused on trying to get intel about Max, fucked random women, and gambled with Roque; Cougar slept fitfully, buried himself in multiple women at a time to just forget, and tried to find jobs for them all until they can get themselves sorted, praying to himself when he can’t sleep at all.

Jensen buried it all, buried it deep, because he was the one that smiled and made everyone laugh, made sure everyone else was okay and not hungry. Slowly dying inside, but not letting anyone see.

One time, after they’d met Aisha, the woman saw the pain, had set aside her badass and uncaring persona to try and help the man that could easily become the little brother she never had. He’d smiled, though it didn’t meet his eyes, and told her that she had more important things to worry about, like whether the next woman Clay slept with was going to kill him or go batshit and kill them all this time. She saw the actions and heard the words for what they were. She backed off but told the team to keep any eye on him.

Jensen, the one everyone outside the team saw as the weak link, the blonde geek, the fool, was truly just a ticking timebomb.

And then…the worst happened.

They’d let their guard down, thought that now that Max was gone, they could get on with their lives. They had steady jobs outside of the military with medals out the wazoo to commemorate and honor them in the eyes of everyone involved, and those not. Everything seems peachy now, and they are no longer running for their lives while still trying to avenge the lives lost.

Aisha and Clay both opened their own security firm, and they have an open relationship—Clay can fuck who he wants, but he doesn’t bring them home, and Aisha makes sure the psychotic bitches don’t kill either of them. Cougar works part-time under Aisha and Clay, and part-time at a children’s martial arts dojo, teaching them self-defense. Pooch opened an auto body and mechanic shop close to his home so that he can easily travel back and forth if Jolene needs help with their baby, and he makes everyone’s cars into badass machines.

Jensen does a mash up of tech support, security checks for the cyber world to show companies and VIPs how easily he can hack into them, and creating his own video games. He lives seven blocks from his sister in New Hampshire while they others live in New York.

But then tragedy always sees fit to strike when they’re at their most vulnerable.

Jensen sits lifelessly in a chair on the porch, eyes dead as a bottle of whiskey hangs precariously from his nerveless hand, almost empty. He’d been sitting there for almost two hours, just staring without seeing. Intellectually he knows that trying to drown the pain and the memory never works, that alcohol only depresses a person more. He doesn’t much care right now.

There’d been a robbery gone wrong at the local grocery. Some asshole had thought he’d be a hero if he slammed an elbow into the back of the guy-with-a-gun’s head. He missed, hit between his shoulder blades instead. Guy-with-a-gun swung around, cashier hit the alarm for police, and the gun fired off four shots. One hit a gallon of milk; one shattered the glass jar holding cellophane-wrapped gumballs. The last two lodged themselves through a blonde woman’s throat and into a 10-year-old’s stomach.

The woman died within seconds. The little girl fought for life for five hours before succumbing to the darkness that stole her mother.

Gabrielle Jensen died September 15th, 2012, at 4:15pm. Beth Ann Jensen died September 15th, 2012, at 9:24pm.

It’s 11pm now. Jensen stands and staggers into the house he’d bought. He stumbles to the phone sitting on the table next to the couch. Dropping heavily onto the couch Beth had chosen for him, Jensen stares at the phone. He takes a swig from the whiskey bottle and tosses it away, uncaring that it could have broken on the floor. He presses speed-dial 3 and listens to the line ring.

“ _¿_ Hola _?_ ” says the gruff voice of a just-awoken Cougar after the third ring.

“Hey, Cougs.” His throat tightens uncomfortably.

“ _Jensen? It’s 11._ ”

“Heh. Yeah. Sorry. Am I disturbing your beauty sleep?” He’s not even putting effort into it now. They’re all fine. Everyone’s safe. It’s his turn this time. He knows he can’t do this one on his own like he’s used to in the past.

“ _What’s wrong,_ amigo _?_ _Are the_ senoritas _all right?_ ”

Cougs always knew which question to ask.

Jensen’s breath hitches, and his eyes close. He swallows, head tilting back. He licks his lips, hands clenching. “They’re gone, Cougs,” he says, voice breaking. He takes a deep breath, gulping for air. He feels like he’s drowning. “Fucking bastard took them out in the candy aisle. They’re both fucking dead, Cougs! They were all I had. I have nothing now, and I don’t know how to take care of this one.”

He was rambling, blubbering, tears pouring out of his eyes unrestrained. The agony in his chest is threatening to crush him, and he hunches in on himself. He drops the phone, sobbing, curling in a ball and falling to lay on his side on the couch. He doesn’t hear Cougar calling for him, nor the sound of the dial tone after two or three minutes.

Next thing he knows, he’s thrashing, destroying things. He smashes his lamps, upends the couch and coffee table. He whirlwinds to the kitchen, breaks dishes and swipes mail and pots and pans and coffee cups to the floor. A punch to the refrigerator door leaves a fist-sized dent in its front.

He’s upstairs next, and he doesn’t remember getting there. He tears things from the walls, chucks one of his laptops at the window. Then he’s in his bedroom, and he tears the drawers from his dresser. He flips the mattress, pillows flying and blankets strewn across the floor. He gets to the adjoining bathroom and stops, grips the sink. He sees himself without truly seeing. Tears streaming, eyes bloodshot, face flushed and dirty, snot bubbling from his nose, a slight bit of foam at the corner of his mouth. His knuckles are bleeding, and he feels like he’s about to explode. He screams like someone’s murdering him, or like he’s murdering someone, and he slams his fist into the mirror in front of him.

It cracks and fractures his visage, and he thinks that that’s exactly right now. He’s broken, shattered inside, and no amount of superglue will fix it.

He punches the mirror again, and reflective shards rain down, spreading over his floor and in the sink. His legs give out, and he sprawls on the floor.

All the strength leaves him, and he just breathes and keens on the floor, helpless. Jensen can feel his heart bleeding, breaking. His whole world has been ripped from him. His consolation was that the police had shot the bastard dead when he swung around, gun pointed at the squad cars.

Before he slips away into blessed unconsciousness, he hopes that the bastard burns in Hell.

~*~~*~~*~

 _He’s awoken by Cougar and Clay_ in his bathroom. The whole gang, even Jolene and the one-year-old Terrell, had driven all night to get to their fallen teammate. They drag him off the floor and help him out across the glass of the shattered mirror. They take him downstairs, where Pooch, Jolene, and Aisha are tidying up the house.

They set him down at the kitchen table, and Clay fetches a glass of water, sneaking a sedative into it to keep Jensen calm. Cougar fetches one of the three first-aid kits Jensen has in the house, this one hidden under the sink. He meticulously picks shards of glass from his broken teammate’s knuckles.

His silence, as always, is unnerving. Clay forces the water and sedative down Jensen’s throat, then starts picking glass from his blonde spikes. Aisha walks in with a belt and puts it between Jensen’s teeth just to be sure as she and Cougar work on stitching his worst cuts without anesthetic. Tears slip down his face unchecked, but he doesn’t scream.

Soon, he’s stitched up, and aside from the holes in the wall, the dents in various appliances, the broken window and mirror, the place is back to normal, sans a lamp and laptop. Jensen is like a zombie, and they all watch worried. Jolene fixes some soup for him, and they somehow coax most of it into him without having to physically force it down his throat. Jolene and Aisha hold him, all of them speechless, unsure of how to make this better for him.

He doesn’t seem to snap out of his stupor until Terrell starts crying. They tense, not sure how he’ll react. He blinks, awareness coming into his eyes, and he seems to acknowledge them all for the first time. Then he’s up and grabbing Terrell, burying his face in the child’s curly hair as he tries to soothe his godchild.

“I’ve focused my life on keeping you guys safe and happy and alive,” Jensen finally says as Terrell calms. He turns to face them, his face a devastating wreck. “I always made sure to push everything aside so I can focus on you guys, because you’re important to me. I made the mistake of thinking everything would be okay now, that nothing else bad could happen.”

He swallows, eyes glistening but now spilling over. “You’re all I have left now. And I’m not strong enough to do this by myself. I can take care of other people. I’m the best with kids. But I have never had to take care of myself.” He takes a deep breath. “I’m going to need you guys to show me the way this time around.”

Jolene doesn’t hesitate to cross the room to him, hugging him tight. Then come Aisha and Pooch, surrounding him. Clay’s hand, callused and warm, curls around the back of his neck and squeezes, comforting him. Cougar steps close, and he deliberately takes off his ever-present cowboy hat and places it on Jake’s head.

“ _Ustedes son familia y protegemos los nuestros_ ,” the ex-sniper says firmly, eyes locked with Jensen’s.

Jensen swallows, nods, eyes glistening once more. He shuts them and ducks his head, breathing deep.

Everything will be all right. Not immediately. There’s a lot he needs fixed, and not just in the house, but he knows his team has him now and won’t let him break completely.

They’ll make sure there won’t be a reason for Jensen to go silent again.

~*~~*~~*~

 _Ustedes son familia y protegemos los nuestros._ : You are family, and we protect our own.


End file.
